The business behind the show

The Morning Fix: Emmy recap! 'Lion King' roars. Netflix says sorry.

September 19, 2011 | 7:34
am

After the coffee. Before shaking off the Emmy hangover.

The Skinny: It was a long night, and I'm a little tired. That Falcons-Eagles game ran late. Oh wait, no, I mean I was all caught up in the Emmy Awards! Monday's headlines include Emmy recaps, Netflix admitting some arrogance and Disney's "The Lion King" showing it it can still wear the crown.

Didn't I see this before? The 63rd Annual Primetime Emmy Awards had a few surprises -- "Friday Night Lights" getting some much-deserved love, "Downtown Abbey" cleaning up and Melissa McCarthy taking best actress in a comedy -- but mostly it was the same old story. ABC's "Modern Family" again took best comedy and AMC's "Mad Men" walked off with best drama. As for the show itself, host Jane Lynch was solid but the production had a somewhat dated look. Emmy results, analysis and reviews from the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Washington Post, Variety, Hollywood Reporter and Deadline Hollywood.

My bad. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings wasn't watching the Emmy Awards or football on Sunday. Instead the head of the home entertainment company was writing a note to customers saying he had been arrogant and that the company hadn't done a good job explaining the rationale for its new subscription model. Netflix got hammered by investors and customers last week. Its new pricing plan will be tweaked slightly, although as far as I can tell, it's not really being changed that much; Hastings is just trying to explain it better. The big change is that the mail business will now be called Qwikster. Seems to me it's not the name that was an issue. Details from the Los Angeles Times and Bloomberg and a critical look at Netflix from MarketWatch.

Still a lot of roar. Disney's 3-D release of "The Lion King" clawed through the competition to the top spot at the box office, taking in $29.3 million. Among the other new movies, Ryan Gosling's "Drive" made $11 million, which was respectable (interesting that the latest ads make it look like a romance film), but "Straw Dogs" and "I Don't Know How She Does It" generated little heat. Box-office coverage from the Los Angeles Times and Movie City News.

Back to his roots. Former Viacom CEO Tom Freston, who before becoming an entertainment executive lived in Afghanistan and worked in the clothing business, is again fascinated with the region and now is advising the Moby Group, which owns media outlets in the country. "Every time I go there, there are kids doing a bunch of new things, making all kinds of interesting programming," he told New York Times columnist David Carr. Well, building entertainment programming in Afghanistan is probably easier than Freston's other big gig, which is consulting Oprah Winfrey on her OWN cable channel.

Talking the talk. The backstage drama at the CBS daytime show "The Talk" has hit the big time with the Wall Street Journal weighing in on the latest revamp of the show, which is entering its second season. There is some new talent on the show but most interesting is Julie Chen's influence. Chen is, of course, the wife of CBS CEO Leslie Moonves. CBS brass will probably put that story on the bottom of the clips that go to Moonves' office, but this fawning article from the Daily Beast will certainly be on top.